“Steve Kerr Made A Mistake”: Ex Timberwolves Forward Urges Jayson Tatum To Forgive Warriors Coach For Olympics Benching

Aakash Nair | 23/01/2025
Steve Kerr Jayson Tatum

Jayson Tatum led the Celtics to a 125-85 blowout win at Chase Center on Monday. It was the Warriors’ biggest home loss in 40 years and a certain post-game moment involving Tatum and Stephen Curry only made the situation worse for Steve Kerr. 

As JT and the Chef exchanged words after the final whistle, the cameras caught Kerr lurking behind them, likely to greet and congratulate his opponent. However, Tatum didn’t give the Dubs coach any attention, forcing him to awkwardly walk away from the interaction.

That moment found its way to the Gil’s Arena podcast where Rashad McCants shared his take on the alleged beef between Kerr and Tatum.

“How do you as a player deal with the trauma of a situation like this?“, the former Minnesota Timberwolves guard commented.

The situation he’s referring to is Tatum being benched during the 2024 Paris Olympics. Celtics fans have certainly held a grudge against Team USA’s head coach for treating their superstar poorly, through much of the Olympic run. But McCants is advising Tatum to bury the hatchet with Kerr. 

“For Jayson Tatum, yeah man, we could say man, we could hold that s*** against him [Kerr] but to be honest man, for his brand and everything, he need to see that man Steve Kerr made a mistake. Don’t hold this s*** on your heart for something he did. To kill them coaches who do s*** like that, is you put it in their face and you show them that it didn’t affect you,” McCants explained.

Of course, the Celtics superstar hasn’t publicly called out Kerr for his Olympic rotation but it’s believable that he ignored the Dubs’ head coach on Monday to slight him. However, if we are to listen to coach Kerr, there is allegedly no bad blood between him and Tatum.

Kerr had cleared the air about him and Tatum

Boston fans were dubbing the Monday night blowout a ‘JT revenge game’ as he had the opportunity to prove Kerr wrong for not believing in him during the Olympics. But as far as Kerr is concerned, there was no narrative involved in their matchup.

He clarified after the game that he and Tatum have been in communication since the first leg of their regular season series in November. 

“We texted after the game in Boston a couple of months ago and we talked last night after the game,” the 59-year-old shared via Mark Willard and Dan Dibley.

He described Tatum as “an absolute dream to coach” and tried to clear the air about their relationship following the Paris Olympics. 

“During all that stuff, that so-called controversy, you might notice there wasn’t a single quote from Jayson. It was everybody else talking about it. Jayson is an amazing guy and an incredible player and he couldn’t have handled it any better when he was there,” Kerr added. 

While JT has handled the press side of things with maturity, it’s hard to make sense of Tatum and Kerr’s Monday night interaction without the context of their relationship as Olympic coach and player. 

Post Edited By: Samir Mehdi
Jayson Tatum Steve Kerr

About the author

Aakash Nair

Aakash Nair

NBA journalist Aakash Nair has followed the game for nearly a decade. He believes that basketball today is just as alive during the off-season with podcasts, interviews, articles and YouTube videos constantly providing fans with new insights. Aakash closely follows the game of narratives, of who will have a breakout year and who might be on the slump. As a fan, he is interested in all the context and behind-the-scenes moves that go into making a championship contender. As a writer, he intends to bring that same context to the forefront.

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